HALA - Canna / Voutchkova

HALA ignites Helene Matthia’s fairytale-like compositions with raw energy and fearless theatrics.Often compared to Nina Hagen lost in a Tim Burton movie, their music crashes through avant-pop, progressive rock, cabaret, and free improvisation in wildly unpredictable ways.
They’ve blown up stages across Europe, including Freakshow Festival 2024, PonavaFest 2025, and Herzberg Festival 2025. Every show is an unleashed collision of improvisation, dynamics, and four freaky personalities – strong, messy, and impossible to forget.
With Helene Matthia on voice, Arno Bakker on sousaphone, Jasper Stadhouders on guitar and Gerri Jäger on drums. The band was formed in 2017 in the basement of Atelier „Il sole in cantina“, Cantina Records in Groningen, which is known for its experimental journeys.
‚Free improvisations transform into contagious rock rhythms and funky dance tunes’ (Eddy Determeyer concert review | www.draaiomjeoren.com)

Canna / Voutchkova
Thomas Canna and Biliana Voutchkova met in Bern and began working together through shared artistic references, quickly recognizing a common approach to listening and sound.

Their work moves between raw material and something more archaic, between concrete gesture and resonance, between silence and the tactile, the ephemeral. Using extended techniques and preparations with percussion, violin, voice and objects, they build slowly evolving sound textures and subtle, shifting layers, creating dense yet fragile sonic structures.

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